Windows Azure toolkit for iOS devices iPhone, iPad

The toolkit contains a “compiled Objective-C library for working with services running in Windows Azure (e.g. push notification, authN/authZ, and storage),” along with Objective-C source code and Xcode project files. It also includes a sample iOS application and its source code, designed to show developers how Azure can be used inside of the platform.

The toolkit has been posted to github and can be found at the following three links:

Included in the latest update is support for the Azure Access Control Service (ACS). According to a blog post by Wade Wegner, an Azure Technical Evangelist, this ACS support “makes it extremely easy for an Objective-C and iOS developer to leverage ACS to provide identity federation to existing identity providers (such as Live ID, Facebook, Yahoo!, Google, and ADFS,” or Active Directory Federation Services.”

ACS is one of the elements of Windows Azure AppFabric.

Today’s 1.2 release is the fourth update to the toolkit since Microsoft initially delivered it in early May. Microsoft also has released similar toolkits for Windows Phones and for Android phones.

Other new features in the 1.2 iOS toolkit include:

•A number of “Cloud Ready Packages” that can be deployed to Azure, eliminating the need for developers to run Windows and/or Visual Studio to create the package being deployed to Microsoft’s cloud OS

•A polished sample app that now supports ACS

•A native OSX application that can both create the .CSCFG file with the correct values and configure the Access Control Service.